


Play it Twice

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Series: and sure my love would come along [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, LV AU WEEK, Meet-Cute, Snark, it's like a soulmates AU without the soulmates AU?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-12 23:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18020699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: Veronica and Logan meet for a second first time.LoVe AU Week: Day Three -Prosthetic Loveby Typhoon





	Play it Twice

**Author's Note:**

> _I was falling in love years before I ever met someone_  
>  _Like a prayer you don't expect an answer_  
>  _Though you ask for one_  
>  _And sure my love would come along_  
>  _Like some rare bird and only I would recognize its song_  
>     
> Technically a prequel to the fic from Day 1 of the AU Week ("No Love like Your Love"), but that's not required reading. That being said, I personally enjoy them better together.

“I know you from somewhere.”

It’s not the politest thing to say to a (possible) stranger at the bar, especially when he’s been so kind as to move out of the way so you can hail the bartender. Nonetheless, the statement spills from Veronica’s lips before she has the chance to check herself, and the thing is, she’s pretty sure it’s true. He seems incredibly familiar.

Fortunately, the guy—who’s six feet tall and wearing a tux like God or Tom Ford invented them specifically for him—looks amused, not offended, by her brazenness. He takes her in curiously. Then instead of calling her out for the cliché, he bobs his eyebrows and suggests, “Past life?”

Veronica shakes her head. “No, Tilly told me all my past lives, and you weren’t there.”

“Tilly?”

“Reads palms on Santa Monica pier.”

“Ah, see I always go to Esmerelda.”

“Mmm.” Veronica doesn’t bother flagging down the bartender; she needed a break from her date anyway ( _should_ never _have let Laura set her up_ ), and now there’s a little mystery to solve, which is always going to beat the mediocre party chit-chat she left behind at the table. “Veronica,” she says and offers her hand to shake.

He takes it. “Logan.”

 _Logan, Logan, Logan. How does she know him? She definitely knows him. She’s just not sure_ how _._

He’s good-looking: tall, broad, tan and clean-shaven, leaned against the bar in a suit tailored almost too well for this venue. Best guess says he’s around her age, which is forty—not that anyone asked—and without a wedding ring—not that anyone checked.

He angles slightly away, but it’s not a brush off; rather, he raises his arm like he’s about to wave over the bartender. Since there’s a glass of iced amber liquid already caught in his hand, Veronica quickly calls him off.

“Oh, don’t bother on my account. I need a minute anyway.” She glances reflexively across the ballroom, though she can’t see Scott or her seat through the mingling crowd.

“Bad table?” guesses Familiar Logan.

“Blind date.”

“Not a love connection, huh?”

“Not so much, Chuck. I know the name of his top five Post-EDM Synth-Folk Rock bands... but not his nine-year-old kid.”

“That can’t be a real genre.”

“It is,” she’s pained to say. “I Googled.”

“Well then have you considered that maybe _he_ doesn’t know the kid’s name either?”

Veronica sighs, because fair is fair: “No, no, he’s... _fine_ , I guess.”

“A glowing endorsement.”

“...He’s just. I don't know, I always kind of... judge men who date women fifteen years younger than them, but... I don’t know, I kinda get it now. This guy’s three years _older_ than I am, but I feel like I’m talking to a twenty-two-year-old. I just wish people would realize that _n_ _o one_ wants to hear about their ‘revelatory’ ayahuasca trips.”

Logan nods sagely and takes a sip of his drink. “Has he brought up Thailand yet?” he asks, and Veronica bursts out laughing.

“How did you know? Have you _met_ this guy?”

“Nah, but I know the room, it was a coin-toss between Thailand and Amsterdam.” Literally speaking, the room in question is the ballroom at the Mirage Hotel in Beverly Hills. Figuratively speaking, “the room” is two-hundred-and-fifty journalists and journalist-adjacent individuals, dressed in black tie for this year’s Jerald K. Hauer Excellence in Media awards—which is about as interesting as it sounds. “ _And_ I know blind dates,” Logan adds.

“Yeah?” Veronica leans against the bar, mirroring Familiar Logan’s posture. “What do I have to look forward to?”

“In my experience? Either an early ride-share home or... roughly two years of marriage.”

 _And yet no wedding ring?_ Still, it’s a clue. “If I end up married to this guy for two years, I’ll blow my brains out.”

“Or you could make like I did and get divorced.”

“I’ve done that too. Expensive.”

“Easier on the carpets, though.”

“I’ll tip the cleaning crew.”

He grins, and there’s something smug about him that’s fifty percent annoying and fifty percent attractive.

“You _know_ how I know you, don’t you?” Veronica accuses, to which he laughs but doesn’t answer. “You know why I recognize you, and you’re not telling.”

“It’s so much more fun if you—”

He’s cut off by someone shouting, “Hey, _Echolls_!” just then, and Veronica scarcely has time to register that the greeting comes from another man approaching them—unfamiliar and wearing a vastly inferior tuxedo—before a second interruption confronts her in the form of the bartender, who has just come around to their end of the counter. While Logan shakes hands with his friend, Veronica orders herself a martini. Then she puts it together.

Logan Echolls _,_ of course. _That's_ how she knows him. Well, nearly everyone knows him on some level: son of notorious, dead movie stars—the adolescent America assumed would go bad, until he famously up and joined the military. What in God’s name he’s doing _here_ is a mystery, but the funny thing is, that’s not even really how Veronica knows him. Truth is, they _have_ met. Once. Years and years ago at a party at—she strains her memory—somewhere. Shit. Where was that?

Jack was there. Maybe a work thing, or—

No, it was _Wallace’s._ Wallace’s house in Neptune... an informal ten-year reunion for their Hearst graduation. That would make it... seven or eight years ago now.

Jack was in a bad mood, because it’s never really fun hanging out with other people’s college friends. Mac and Parker were there. That was the party—oh, Melissa showed up and there was  _drama_ , because she hadn't seen Rory since she moved back to California... Veronica tries to piece together something else she might know about Logan Echolls, but there isn't much. She only spoke with him for a few minutes, nothing particularly memorable, idle dinner-party chatter. The only reason Veronica remembers it at all is that he’s Logan Echolls, and you usually remember when you meet someone peripherally famous.

She remembers being annoyed with him.

Before she gets to remembering why, Logan’s finished glad-handing and is swiveling back toward her.

“You’re Logan Echolls,” she says. Of course, he had assumed she recognized him from the ghosts of tabloids past.

“Now you have me at a disadvantage,” he says, excessively smooth. She would roll her eyes, except that it’s funny—he has no idea. Her drink arrives.

“I was right,” she tells him, “I _do_ know you. But not for the reason you think I know you.” No need to explain that just yet. “What are you doing at this thing anyway?”

“Don’t I fit in?”

“I thought you were in the military. Didn’t I read in the _Enquirer_ that you’d defected to Russia or something? I vividly recall the picture. You had a hat.”

“ _Was_ in the Navy. Didn’t defect. Partially because it’s not 1967 and that’s not really a thing anymore, but I'd also like to believe there was some element of patriotism at work.”

“So now you...?”

“Consult.”

“For?”

“Money.”

“Oh you should do stand-up."

He tips his glass to her. "A friend of mine is up for something." He waves vaguely toward the front of the ballroom, to indicate the impending award presentation. "I did research and background on the piece, so he got me a seat.”

"Foreign policy?"

"They never ask for my theatrical reviews."

“Who’s your friend?”

“Alex Lassiter.” _Of course_. Veronica laughs, and Logan raises his eyebrows. “You know Alex?”

“Sure, his wife’s the reason I’m on a date with the human vape pen over there.”

“And here Lal’s always bragging about her flawless taste.”

“Clothes and food, yes. Unmarried men in their forties? Not so much.” Logan’s eyes narrow; he’s studying her. She can guess what he’s thinking and smirks, enjoying the upper hand. “But the Lassiters aren’t how we know each other either.”

She remembers this part clearly, standing in Wallace’s kitchen, away from the rest of the party—the old house, before he moved to the Bay.

She was teasing her friend: _“Fennel. The very first time we met, on that very first day at Hearst, you swore to me that you didn’t know any famous Neptune-ites. And here you are, BFFs with a movie star’s son...”_

 _“Who, Echolls? We went to high school together,”_ Wallace had told her, placating, _“We weren’t friends back then. He was an asshole. He’s cooler now.”_

Logan Echolls takes another sip of his drink, but keeps his eyes fixed on hers. “So are _you_ up for an award?” he asks.

“Uh-huh.”

“What for?” It feels like twenty questions.

“I took some pictures.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Mars.”

“How do you know Lal?”

“Laura? We used to work together. She was my mentor before she retired to a life of dinner parties and topical think-pieces.” Okay, maybe that’s on the judgmental side, but Veronica is a little pissed at the moment. _Scott teaches media at LMU, he loves to travel, you'll be_ _perfect!_ Laura had said, and Veronica can't believe that her friend thought a guy who brought up Burning Man in their first conversation would be “perfect” in any capacity—especially when Captain Biceps over here was on the backburner. “We used to run around the world together picking ill-advised fights with people. Don’t tell her I said that about the dinner parties.” She pokes at an olive with a toothpick. “How do you know the Lassiters?”

“Alex was a correspondent in Busan when I was doing a rotation at CNFK.”

Veronica doesn't recall if Alex ever mentioned consorting with almost-celebrities, but thinks it unlikely anyway. Her friend’s husband is a serious, upright kind of guy, not prone to name-dropping.

“He ever set you up on a really lame blind date?”

“Nah, but one time I asked him to order me a coke and he got me Diet.”

“And you still speak to him?”

There's a sudden glimmer in his eyes, then, a flash of something like recognition, and Veronica wonders if he’s figured her out. She doesn’t see how that’s possible, but decides to play her cards before he has the chance to:

“Wallace Fennel.” Echolls doesn’t bite, just waggles his eyebrows again. “That’s how I know you. We met at Wallace Fennel’s house a bunch of years ago. My college reunion—I don’t know what you were doing there. You go to Hearst?”

“No, Fennel and I went to the same high school. Then he was a contractor at North Shore when I worked there.” Logan tilts his head, and his lips curl, amused. “You know I think I do remember you.”

Veronica laughs again. “Liar.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You don’t remember me. Why would you remember me?”

“Why wouldn’t I remember you?”

 _“Con artist_.”

“You yelled at me for something.”

“I did _not_.”

“I think you did.”

“I didn’t,” she says, pointing decisively, “I didn’t and I remember that I didn’t, because I was specifically being considerate of Wallace’s home and hospitality.”

“So you _wanted_ to yell at me for something. Told ya I remembered.”

“Yeah right, you’re playing the odds.” Somewhere in the remote and misty recesses of her brain, Veronica wonders if she should get back to her date soon. She dismisses this thought without much concern. “Be quiet for a second, I’m trying to remember.” She digs deep: recalls standing on Wallace’s back porch, under lights. Remembers Jack and remembers Echolls and a handful of unidentifiable others, spouses of friends, _etcetera._ Logan was holding a beer, _she can see it_ , and—“You made a face,” she says. “That’s it, I remember, you made a face.”

“I made a face.”

“Yes.”

“It’s lucky you didn’t have me arrested.”

“Right?”

“Maybe I’m biased, but making a face... doesn’t seem worthy of ire.”

Yep, it’s all coming back to her now.There was a group of them talking out on the deck. Jack was in a bad mood and he made some kind of _comment_ —she truthfully doesn’t have any idea _what_ comment... she was with the guy for seven years, married for four: there were a lot of comments, on both sides. So Jack made some kind of comment, and Echolls made a face. Probably nobody else noticed, but Veronica did, and she remembers glaring at him, thinking _he_ _should_ _mind his own damned business_.

“You made a judgy face at me,” says Veronica, with a dignified sip of her martini. “It was very deserving of ire.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“ _You_ don’t remember it at all,” she scolds, and Logan laughs.

“The Germans wore grey, you wore blue,” he chants, sinking into an even deeper lean against the bar. “You remember _me._ How come you’re so sure _I_ don’t remember?”

“That’s different,” says Veronica, “I’ve seen your name in line at the supermarket since I was fourteen years old.”

“You paparazzi never shoot my good side.”

“Shhh, you’ll blow my cover. I’ve only just managed to convince these idiots I’m a legitimate journalist.” She leans forward for the conspiratorial whisper, but then doesn’t retreat. It’s a lot warmer on this side of the ballroom, despite the generous amount of exposed skin afforded by her black silk dress.

“You could buy my silence,” Logan says, tapping his dwindling drink.

“It’s an open bar.”

“I’m a cheap date.”

“I already got one of those, don’t you?”

“Nope. Third wheeling the Lassiters.”

“Not fair.”

“Table four.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I’m helpful like that.”

She’s nursing the cocktail—there’s no real reason for her to feel lightheaded. Somewhere in the room, someone makes the announcement that the salad course will be served imminently. “I should get back to my date,” Veronica says and lets herself sound reluctant. The fact that she doesn’t move likely contributes to that overall effect.

“Anything worth rushing for?” asks Logan, and when Veronica raises her eyebrows, he adds: “I meant the salad.” She shakes her head and pulls a couple dollars out of her clutch to tip the bartender. Logan stands straight, clears his throat and asks, “What table are you at?”

—Which makes her laugh again. “That’s a bad idea.”

“But I’ve never been to Thailand. I might learn something.”

“What's the phrase? Dance with him what brung ya?”

“That’ll make it awkward for the Lassiters.”

“I’d trade in a heartbeat.”

“Deal.”

“Sorry, Charlie.” She snaps her purse closed, smooths her dress down, picks up her drink, fidgets to buy time, and then, when she's all out of little tasks, just kind of stands there. There's a moment of charged silence, where they're both just idling, and it should be awkward but somehow isn't. It isn't, because Veronica doesn't want to go, and she feels sure that he doesn't want her to go either, and it's strange but exhilarating, syncing up with a stranger like that, no matter how briefly or randomly. He's handsome yes-of-course, but that's not even it. There's something else about his face that makes her want to keep staring. It's unsustainable, she really does need to go. She'll find Logan Echolls later, she'll have to. “Laura has my phone number,” she says not-quite-casually.

The faintest smile flickers across his lips. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,” he says—about the award—and holds up one hand to illustrate. They’re very long fingers. Ridiculously, Veronica feels her face heat up. With previously unsuspected levels of self-restraint, however, she suppresses the urge to post up here and volley innuendo all evening, and—with a parting nod—she turns to leave. “You stepped on a guy’s foot,” Logan says, before she’s gone three paces.

“Huh?”

“At Wallace’s party. You were talking to some guy—tearing him apart, it looked like, and then you stomped on his foot and walked away.”

She doesn’t actually believe it for a few seconds, just stands their blinking at Echolls, thrown, because he’s absolutely right. “Jeremy Strait. My friend Parker’s ex."

"And what did Jeremy Strait do to invoke your righteous ire?"

"He made some statements about his girlfriend that I didn’t like.”

“Well at least you didn’t do anything as unforgivable as _make a face_.” Logan’s smirking at her again. It’s a thirty-seventy annoying-attractive ratio this time. “Wallace and I saw the whole thing, and Wallace said something like _that’s Veronica for you_.”

“Principled?”

“Not the word, but _surely_ the sentiment. And then he said...” Logan breaks off, evidently thinking better of it.

“Said what?” 

His words sound carefully selected: “He was pretty quick to advise me of your marital status.”

“Good old Wallace.”

“...Looking out for everyone.”

Veronica stays put. There’s a salad and a one-sided conversation about tech-journalism waiting for her, but she stays put. A few seconds tick by; then she walks back to the bar, sets down her drink, and unsnaps her bag, digging around for a pen. She finds one underneath the lipstick and pepper spray. “You know back when our friend Alex was a foreign correspondent...” She plucks a bar napkin from the stack to her right and slides it along the countertop towards herself, “...he told me this story about when he was on assignment in Busan. The brass was pissed at him for—something that was probably his fault, and they tried to hold him.” She clicks the pen and begins writing the ten digits of her phone number. “And there was a bit about this Navy hotshot stationed there who sweet-talked the higher-ups and got him out of the brig.” She finishes writing the final “6” with some flourish, then looks up at Logan, who’s watching her carefully. “Something about a poker game and Yankees tickets. You ever hear that one?”

Logan shrugs, innocent. “As I remember, they were Cubs tickets.”

She hands over the napkin and picks up her drink, gets ready to leave again. “This way Laura can't give you a hard time.”

He reads over the napkin, then folds it over once and keeps it caught between two fingers. “Nice to meet you again, Veronica Mars.”


End file.
